Climate change ecology
Climate change ecology is the study of the impacts of anthropogenic climate change on the ecological patterns of populations, species and communities. This includes distributions, especially such as how species follow their preferred environmental conditions, abundance and biomass as indicating the health of populations, behavioural changes including the critical timings of life cycle stages, and individual physiology such as recording levels of stress in an organisms body. Although the climate has changed in the past, the process of change is usually very slow and ecosystems can usually recover or change accordingly without loss. However, when the climate changes rapidly, in a geological sense, an ecosystem may not be able to keep up with its environment. We hypothesise such scenarios to underlie some of the worse mass extinctions in the fossil record, so the stakes cannot really be higher! Especially since we are still very much dependent on natural ecosystems for services like clean air, flood prevention, food and happinness. What climate change ecology aims to do is to properly assess the probability and nature of ecological responses to anthropogenic climate change, so we can anticipate future impacts. Then society can make an informed choice on what courses of action it is willing to take, either to avoid, remedy or accommodate expected ecological loss.
See what CCAT researchers are contributing to this science in the list of publications below (or go to About -> Our awesome research)
Research articles
Is the North Atlantic Current Collapsing?
The North Atlantic Current is an important ocean current that circulates ocean water and is therefore responsible for ocean circulation. […]
Global temperatures continued to increase in 2020
The 2020 global temperatures tied the record high from 2016, but the pandemic led to decreased greenhouse gas emissions in […]

The anthropogenic contribution to global warming
To measure the progress of mankind to attain the temperature goal set in the Paris Agreement, a team of scientists […]
How climate change causes extreme winter weather in Europe and North America
Warming events in the stratosphere over Siberia cause a shift of the polar vortex, pushing parts of it towards Europe […]
Researchers report collapse of native biodiversity in Mediterranean Sea along the coast of Israel
The water temperatures along the coastline of Israel are among the highest in the Mediterranean Sea. With rising sea temperatures […]
CO2-Contribution to more sustainability in research funding
As part of the German Research Foundation’s (DFG) focus on sustainability in research funding, the DFG is planning to offset […]
Deterioration risk of dryland earthen heritage sites facing future climatic uncertainty
Conservation strategies for earthen heritage sites need to be adapted to future climate conditions as the risk of environmentally-driven deterioration […]
Food for thought: The way we produce our food is not compatible with climate change targets
Greenhouse gas emissions from global food systems make up about 30% of the total emissions released worldwide. These emissions are […]
No Arctic sea ice in Siberia
Read the full article here. At this time of year, huge ice masses usually form off the coast of Siberia. […]
Super typhoons may be the new norm due to climate change
With sustained winds of exceeding 215 kilometres per hour (195 mph) as it churns its way across Philippines on Sunday […]